Michael Lynton Leaves Sony To Become The Chairman Of Snapchat

The Chief Executive Officer of Sony Entertainment, Michael Lynton, will be stepping down from his position to take a new role in the social media company Snapchat or accurately said “Snap”. According to the recent report by Hollywood Reporter, Lynton had left Sony Entertainment to serve as chairman of Snap (makers of Snapchat). Snap is the parent of messaging and augmented reality app Snapchat.

Sony’s Michael Lynton moving to Snap

The name of Lynton may sound familiar with respect to Sony. Lynton during his time at Sony Entertainment saw the company suffering a huge breach which included a trove of leaked email between various Snapchat investors, executives and Lynton himself as well. It was disclosed in those emails that the social network has bought a set of smaller companies. Also, the emails indicated that Lynton, who was a board member and an early investor at the time, had deeper involvement with the company and some of the future prospects of the company.

As a growing social network worldwide, it would make sense that Snap would need someone like Lynton helping it to support the executive team of the company with connections and experience. Lynton, who is the former chief executive of a large entertainment company, will be involved in the overall strategy of the social network as well.

To convince the Wall Street that it has the potential to be a powerful social network, the company “Snapchat” has to regularly court advertisers and people with large audiences on other media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. Late last year, Snap quietly named Lynton as its chairman, reported the Wall Street Journal.

Lynton to focus on Snap responsibilities

Now, the soon-to-be-ex CEO of Sony will be taking over an even larger role in Snap. He will be guiding Snap as it moves forward towards its main public offering that is expected to happen early this year, probably in the first two quarters.

When Snap goes public, it is expected to be valued more than $20 billion. In addition to this, the company is projecting to generate around $1 billion in revenue in 2017 and is possibly one of the most anticipated IPOs in the last few years. Lynton who worked at Sony for around eleven years will continue to work as Sony Co-CEO for the next six months and after that, he will focus on chairmanship of Snap.

Nishtha Singh is a iStartup staff reporter who covers tech news, including review of devices, emerging startups, acquisitions, gadgets, Cars, Cloud, EVs, AR, VR, AI and more. Further, she is a reader, a tech-enthusiast, and a writer. Editor at Teenage Publishing and proof-reader at Evoque Publishing.